Higher School of Management and Digital Economy

2nd year Business English lessons

Prepared by Mrs. Boudjemil

Unit 6: Marketing
The centrality of marketing

There will always, one can assume, be a need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to
make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that
the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is
ready to buy.
Peter Drucker: Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

Most management and marketing writers now distinguish between selling and marketing.
The 'selling concept' assumes that resisting consumers have to be persuaded by vigorous hard-
selling techniques to buy non- essential goods or services. Products are sold rather than bought.
The 'marketing concept', on the contrary, assumes that the producer’s task is to find wants and
fill them. In other words, you don't sell what you make; you make what will be bought. As well
as satisfying existing needs, marketers can also anticipate and create new ones. The markets for
the Walkman, video recorders, CD players, mobile phone, mountain bikes, to choose some
recent examples, were largely created rather than identified.

Marketers are consequently always looking for market opportunities - profitable

possibilities of filling unsatisfied needs or creating new ones in areas in which the company is
likely to enjoy a differential advantage, due to its distinctive competencies (the things it does
particularly well). Market opportunities are generally isolated by market segmentation. Once a
target market has been identified, a company has to decide what goods or services to offer. This
means that much of the work of marketing has been done before the final product or service
comes into existence. It also means that the marketing concept has to be understood throughout
the company, e.g. in the production department of a manufacturing company, as much as in the
marketing department itself. The company must also take account of the existence of
competitors, who always have to be identified, monitored and defeated in search for loyal
customers.

Rather than risk launching a product or service solely on the basis of intuition or
guesswork, most companies undertake market research (GB) or marketing research (US). They
collect and analyse information about the size of a potential market, about consumers' reactions
to particular product or service features, and so on. Sales representatives, who also talk to
customers, are another important source of information.

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 Once the basic offer, e.g. a product concept, has been established, the company has to
think about the marketing mix, i.e. all the various elements of a marketing programme, their
integration, and the amount of effort that a company can expend on them in order to influence
the target market. The best known classification of these elements is the 'Four Ps': product,
place, promotion and price. Aspects to be considered in marketing products include quality,
features (standard and optional), style, brand name, size, packaging, services and guarantee.
Place in a marketing mix includes such factors as distribution channels, locations of points of
sale, transport, inventory size, etc. Promotion groups together advertising, publicity, sales
promotion, and personal selling, while price includes the basic list price discounts, the length of
the payment period, possible credit terms, and so on. It must be remembered that quite apart
from consumer markets (in which people buy products for direct consumption) there exists an
enormous producer or industrial or business market, consisting of all the individuals and
organizations that acquire goods and services that are used in the production of other goods, or
in the supply of services to others. Few consumers realize that the producer market is actually
larger than the consumer market, since it contains all the raw materials, manufactured parts and
components that go into consumer goods.

Activity 1

Activity 2
Answer the following questions using your own words as much as possible.

1-Is the marketing work carried by one specific department?

2- Why is it necessary to take into consideration the existence of competitors?
3- How can marketers identify market opportunities?
4- Why does the marketer say that producers cannot sell anything they make?
5- What are the elements to be considered in launching a new product or service?

Activity 3
The following is a summary of the text. Fill in the blanks using these words

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marketing, to offer, market segments, satisfying, promoting, market research, companies,
distributing, marketing
The marketing concept is that a company's choice of what goods and services……………..
should be based on the goal of……………….. consumers' needs. Many ……………. limit
themselves to attempting to satisfy the needs of particular ………………………….. Their
choice of action is often the result of ………………………….... A product’s features, the
methods of ……………………. and ……………………….. it, and its price can all be changed
during the course of its life, if necessary. Quite apart from the ………………….. of consumer
products, with which everybody is familiar, there is a great deal of………………… of
industrial goods.

Activity 4
Look at the following diagrams from Marketing Management by Philip kotler
According to the text above (the centrality of marketing) which of these diagrams best
illustrates a company that has adopted the marketing concept? Explain your answer.

Activity 5

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Activity 5

Activity 6

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Activity 7

Match up these words with their definitions

Media plan, brand preference, competitors, focus group, samples, word-of-mouth advertising,
publicity, brand loyalty, posters, brand switchers, advertising agency, brand awareness

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Grammar:

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